BBC received over 1,500 complaints of bias against Jeremy Corbyn after Panorama episode

The BBC received over 1,500 complaints of bias against Jeremy Corbyn over its Panorama episode on anti-Semitism in the Labour Party that was slammed for being unfair and dishonest.

The ‘Is Labour Anti-Semitic?’ episode aired on July 10, sparking a backlash from Labour and members of the media over its bias against party leader Jeremy Corbyn. 

The BBC complaints service publishes a report every two weeks which shows that the broadcaster received 1,593 complaints about the episode in the first 11 days after it aired. The document says that the main issue of the complaints was “bias against the Labour Party.” Panorama received far more complaints than any other BBC program during this time; the ‘Andrew Neil Interviews’ show was next with 179 complaints. 

The episode was slammed by Labour as being in violation of the BBC’s “obligations of fairness, balance and political impartiality.” Labour said the show included a deceptively-edited email and was largely based on former party members’ opinions, many of whom were staunchly anti-Corbyn, and was produced by John Ware, who had previously made a program smearing Corbyn. 

The episode features two unnamed interviewees who also appeared in an Al Jazeera documentary on the Israel lobby’s influence in UK politics and are on the executive of the anti-Corbyn Jewish Labour Movement. They are Ella Rose, a former Israeli Embassy employee, and Alex Richardson, who was previously filmed colluding with MP Joan Ryan to fabricate an incident of anti-Semitism. The BBC does not disclose their associations, nor does it mention that interviewee Alan Johnson is employed by the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) lobby group. 

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